Saturday 14 February 2003, 2pm
By David Cameron and Virgil Cameron

Wonderful News: John recovering from malaria

Yuki comforts John in the Dunedin Hospital, New Zealand, while John undergoes treatment for malaria. (Photo: Virgil Cameron)

John Cameron has been discharged Saturday morning from Dunedin Public Hospital, New Zealand, where he has been staying since he was admitted on Sunday 8 February with falciparum type Malaria.

To our great relief John is improving steadily, his condition has been stabilised by quinine treatment which appears to have successfully arrested the microbial infection and the period of gravest risk of the infection spreading to the brain is now thankfully over. For this type of malaria, which is considered the most dangerous strain, infection of the brain is commonly fatal.

John was taken off the drip Wednesday and by Thursday he was able to take a walk outside the hospital for the first time.  He will be able to leave the hospital on Saturday, and convalesce at Danielle Cameron and Allan Harrison's house in Purakanui, a half hour drive from Dunedin. He expects to continue the quinine treatment for some days yet.

He is in great spirits and enormously relieved to have finally had his condition positively diagnosed for the first time since he was first in a critical condition after his shipwreck on the west coast of Madagascar in July last year. 

"It was such a relief to finally be diagnosed, though it was a shock to know it was malaria - the strain I had kills the equivalent of half of New Zealand's human population each year. Luckily its treatable and should not recur," John said today.

John and his doctors now suspect that he was suffering from this type of Malaria when marooned in the small village of Ambakivao in the swampy delta of the Tsiribihina River and in the following days in the town of Belo Sur Tsiribihina.  This is consistent with the knowledge that this type of Malaria has a short incubation period of usually no more than ten days.

There is no other sensible explanation for the current outbreak of the infection six months after leaving Madagascar and it also may explain other symptoms experienced by John in the entire period since the first illness in Madagascar which passed undiagnosed. 

John's partner Yukima Payne stayed with John at the hospital each night. 

John continues to suffer some of the side effects of quinine treatment including loss of hearing, ringing in the ears, and nausea but these should cease with the quinine treatment. 

Whilst John's liver has apparently improved, John still has an enormously enlarged spleen which is so rare an event that there has been a parade of medical students and staff coming to his bedside to have a "feel". Due to risk of damaging his spleen, John has been advised not to travel.

John and Yukima were visiting New Zealand for a three week holiday when John began to suffer from severe tiredness, fever, headaches and dizziness. While hitch-hiking in the beautiful Fiordland National Park in the south island, they were forced rest in tent and cabins as John slept the majority of every day.

"Yuki cared for me the whole time. She was at my side day and night, a real angel. It was so good to have her with me this time," John said today.

They returned to Dunedin after a week of the symptoms worsening and met up with Virgil and Maria Cameron and Edwin Wise for a day before going into hospital.

Virgil, Maria and Edwin, who have been visiting Danielle and Allan in New Zealand, are expecting to return to Melbourne as planned, on 20 February. John and Yukima have cancelled their return flights to Melbourne, scheduled for Sunday 15 February, but plan to return to Melbourne by 22 February.